Lt. Frank Drebin: "Go ahead, threaten me like you have the American people for so long! You're part of a dying breed, Hapsburg, like people who can name all fifty states! The truth hurts, doesn't it, Hapsburg? Oh sure, maybe not as much as landing on a bicycle with the seat missing, but it hurts!"

Her problem is that her problem runs against her message. that she was a smart HBS grad, who knew business and knew how to grow jobs in WI. Now she's been outed as a dumbie who has no original ideas and is stuck stealing other peoples work, and not caring much about it or ethics...

She's standing by the old report, which is central to her candidacy, related to the fact that she has a Harvard MBA and that's the substance. But if that's nothing, even if it's not a negative (because it's not technically plagiarism) that leaves us with nothing. There needs to be something!

For example, I'd like to know what she has achieved on the Madison School Board. I understand that she attempted philanthropy related to Madison Prep (which was about helping disadvantaged students) and then she sought office. But then what happened? It's puzzling. How can a cipher be governor?

Honestly, I don't understand why the jobs plan copy-paste thing is such a scandal. She's just "plagiarizing" from other Democrats right? Is it such a surprise that Democrats running for similar offices in states facing vaguely similar issues are going to be proposing basically the same policy solutions?

There's a tension, I guess, between voting for a candidate because he has original ideas you like, and voting for a candidate because he is going to be a generic representative of the policy positions supported by his party, but it's a tension that to my mind is basically irrelevant to most candidates today. People vote for candidates largely on the basis of cultural affiliation (or sometimes outright racial affiliation, in the case of many racial minorities). And frankly, there's legitimate, though somewhat unfortunate, reasons for that, in a diverse country. When things go pear-shaped, you want to know that your leaders are people who will stand up for your interests. Abstract debates about policy are really sort of irrelevant when the main questions are how big a pie the government can bake, how that public pie is going to be carved up, and most important of all, how big a slice can be served up to you and yours.

"Ann Althouse said...For example, I'd like to know what she has achieved on the Madison School Board."

Seriously? She is one of seven people. She runs nothing there. How is this in any way pertinent? Hell, she had to spend $130,000 of her own money to even get on it! This after being "Madison Person of the Year" for once again, giving away a boat load of money.

By the way, there are additional examples of plagiarism now.

Mary Burke is a rich do nothing hippie, a waste of DNA. She isn't qualified to manage a freakin 7-11 much less a state.

Hey Drago: according to folks in the Obama administration, specifically, Toomy Vietor, history is like 2 years ago!

"Dude, that was like 2 years ago!"

We can't have too high of standards for these people. It is why Democrats like Mary Burke. I mean she went to college, she worked for daddy (no confirmation from anyone in the family how successful she was growing that European market - curious, isn't it?), she snowboarded, she did a few things for Jim Doyle, she vacationed, she ran for school board and now she is qualified to run our state. What a sad, sad situation this is!

Why? The world's full of empty suits, and some of the suits that are empty are pants suits. Perhaps she ran because she's rich and bored. Perhaps she ran because she thinks governing a state is easy, just give a couple good speeches and the opposition will fall all over themselves to fall in line. Who knows?

Trek would be the company that dumped Greg Lemond, the clean biker, at the insistence of Armstrong, the dirty biker. That would be Burke's company albeit after she had tired of working there. She claims a preposterous growth in sales during her tenure and under her area of responsibility: $3 million to $50 million in three years. Cant back it up. Very unlikely.

Ah, but does she realize she's a cipher? Lots of people desire the power and prestige of high political office without realizing that the job comes with an in basket.

Who invented liquid soap and why?

That one's a lot easier. The "who" is the person who forgot to put in the ingredient that solidifies the soap into bars. Why? The plant manager realized you could charge lots more for the liquid soap dispenser than you can for the paper wrapper around the bar.

"Democratic gubernatorial South Dakota nominee appears to have plagiarized parts of her issues page from Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, who herself is embattled in a plagiarism snafu of her own."

Her substance is derived from her certification. That's why she and others of her kind mocked Walker. He is of a lower social station than them, and they have not acquired the good graces of courtesy and respect. As for testing her substance or mettle, you have to elect her to know her character.

"Democratic gubernatorial South Dakota nominee appears to have plagiarized parts of her issues page from Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, who herself is embattled in a plagiarism snafu of her own."

Its not plagiarism. Its assimilation to the hive mind. Its a Borg thing.

Actually we do it all the time. But we're careful to "reapply" or "repurpose" ideas that have been tried and tested and shown to work. Then we build off them.

That's one of the two main critiques of this episode. The ideas that Burke's aide cut and pasted have either been tried and failed (someone pointed out Delaware) or not tried at all because they came from the platform of a losing candidate. The second critique is that there's no evidence in her jobs plan of repurposing or adjusting these ideas to the unique social ecology of Wisconsin, much less building on them.

And I guess a third critique would be that if Mary Burke really cared a whole lot about jobs for out-of-work Wisconsin residents then she'd have taken what her aide put together and reworked the ideas and edited them to read like something she wrote.

There have been several notable plagiarists in recent memory. None of them suffered any lasting damage to their reputation or careers. Of course, they have all been Democrats or liberals in good standing. That may have more to do with it than the inconsequence of plagiarism.....I wonder what would happen to George Will if he got caught in a plagiarism scandal..

I never thought these kind of things really happened until it happened to me: I was in Massachusetts visiting family when I was reintroduced to my cousin Kate. I remember when she was just a typical precocious five year old eating ice cream and drawing big blue skies with crayons -- it is so hard to believe that was thirteen years ago!

Later in the evening I was sitting in the hot tub when Kate approached with a towel wrapped around her. She asked if she could join me and I said of course'. Then she dropped her towel and -- to my surprise -- she was totally naked!

"Your breasts weren't that big and round when you were five," I said, and she smiled.

"I'm eighteen now, cousin Steve, a lot of things have changed."

Then she proceeded to give me a blow job, but somehow she got pregnant from it and so we ended up getting married: cousins can marry in Massachusetts. We are now the proud parents of the cutest conjoined twins anywhere. And their babysitter from down the street is HOT, but that's another story...

Off the top of my head there are two obvious ways to respond to the whole "plagiarism" thing (btw, I'm of the opinion that this isn't plagiarism, just sloppiness):

* These are best practices shown to work in transitional economies (always good to throw in some buzzwords -- then you can make up what you think a "transitional economy" is and talk about the Bright Future Under Democratic Leadership)* When I hired whatshisname I told him I admired his work on the other campaigns. I accept responsibility for not monitoring his work product for this campaign more closely, but the central themes still reflect my ideals for the future (FOLLOW TEMPLATE ABOVE RE: BRIGHT FUTURE).

How many days has it been since this blew up? And Burke hasn't bothered to come up with a strategy, let alone a set of practiced talking points, to deflect and defuse this problem?

I believe you're right. It's more about emotion and meaningless gestures that make a person feel good. And don't forget framing everything as if a disagreement with their preferred position is a moral failing, no wait, more than a failing you're downright evil unless you emote correctly. And none of that thinking for yourself either

Meade: "Also, we like our liberals fat, here in Wisconsin. Fat and sleepy, rich and self-satisfied. That's how we like 'em."

I am reminded of the great Charles Laughton as Gracchus in Spartacus explaining to Peter Ustinov's character how lean men are always doing things and causing trouble whereas "Corpulence makes a man reasonable, pleasant and phlegmatic".

Mark,It's not the charge of plagiarism. It's not even the recycling of others' ideas. Quite a few of us borrow concepts and mold them to the circumstances in front of us.

It's the fact that she held forth her credentials as the main reason people should vote for her. She positioned herself as uniquely qualified, through her education, to lead Wisconsin. It was her Harvard Business School education, you see. She, and her followers, mocked Walker for not graduating. And then we all found out that she didn't even take ideas that had worked before and hammered them out to fit Wisconsin. She didn't use that oh so important Harvard Business School education to come up with an economic plan.

Instead, she outsourced it. And the reason she hasn't come up with a polished explanation to address it, is because she knows she outsourced it. She knows that she mailed it in on the centerpiece of her campaign. She actually didn't have a plan that came to her because of her elite education, she can't come up with a plan to address the situation either. I don't live in Wisconsin, but I wouldn't vote for her if I did, based on how she has handled the whole situation irrespective of anything else during this campaign. Unless that kind of thing is ok with you.

I don't know why anyone would be upset with her. She said she didn't compromise any of "her" principles. Well, she is a Democrat so, as a consequence has few principles except whatever it takes to win an election, so what could she possibly compromise?

The main reason I wouldn't vote for her is she's had a week to get the talking points down, to get the politics down pat on this problem (and yes, it's a problem because she was selling herself as the smarter, better-educated, more sophisticated candidate) and she hasn't bothered to do the work.

It's lazy and bottom-line disrespectful to people who do have to work.

Like false voter's ballots and identity theft, plagiarism is simple fraud. A photo ID cures one type, passwords another type and asking the genius to repeat what she did not write should restrain the other.

You get the sense that a Democrat female politician is sure these days that she is immune to criticism because of men giving women the back of the hand meme and warring on the women meme are the only stories that are ever in the media.

People can still cheat and beat any safeguards against deceit, but making fraud harder to do is a basic function of good governance.

We know little about Burke and the media is making no effort to find out anything about her. Why has she chosen not to marry? Who is her significant other? Who are her friends? Exactly what did she do at Trek? What did she do during the years she dropped out and snowboarded? Why did she drop out? Where did she live, what did she do and who did she spend her time with?

Her inflection is even in the form of a question. I'll bet her handlers go thru a bottle of scotch per day.

Burke should have just said she wasn't going to answer any questions, like Walker, when he was repeatedly asked about racist emails, his staff joking about disabled people, whether or not he knew if any of this was going on. Or who was bankrolling his criminal defense fund.

Balfegor said... Honestly, I don't understand why the jobs plan copy-paste thing is such a scandal. She's just "plagiarizing" from other Democrats right? Is it such a surprise that Democrats running for similar offices in states facing vaguely similar issues are going to be proposing basically the same policy solutions? 9/25/14, 7:07 PM

For me (can't speak for everyone else) the issue is NOT that her jobs plan was "stolen" from others because as has been noted elsewhere, there are few original ideas left in Government. I would completely endorce someone saying "Here is my jobs plan, I got it from Mr. XXXX and he used it to create YYY jobs in 2 years!" but that is NOT what she did.

She said here is MY jobs plan and not only was it taken from others but she did not know it was taken from others and she did not know it well enough to speak to it in any sense. It is one thing to turn in a plan that you understand and can explain why parts of it match other plans and be able to justify why those parts were taking (even if you had others write it for you) but to stand there and stammer because you don't know it well enough to say "boo" is completely different and quite revealing.

"The hiatus was marked by what has been dubbed a "snowboarding sabbatical."

Nobody can agree on the particulars. Some news stories and blogs say the sabbatical lasted three months, others six or nine months or perhaps even a year. The excursion has been described as taking place in Argentina. Or Colorado. Or both. With one friend or several, in 1993 or maybe 1994.

There is a reason for all this confusion.

The details still do not come easily, even for Burke herself."

Well, that sure cleared it up for me!! She obviously plagiarized this explanation from Jon Lovitz's "Tommy the Liar" character and his constantly changing explanations.

garage mahal said... Her substance is that she is not Scott Walker. That is all the Democrats in the State care about. They don't need any actual substance other than that.

Oh there is truth to that. Many of us would be happy with any non unindicted felon as governor. 9/26/14, 11:19 AM

That would be the preference in most regards but the real question is would you settle for an unindicted felon as governor if that governor had a "D" after their name verses an "R"? How selective is your "outrage"?

Honestly, I don't understand why the jobs plan copy-paste thing is such a scandal. She's just "plagiarizing" from other Democrats right? Is it such a surprise that Democrats running for similar offices in states facing vaguely similar issues are going to be proposing basically the same policy solutions?

Balfegor: If she were running as a generic Democrat, then you'd be entirely correct. But she's not. She's running as "Mary Burke, HBS grad and all around awesome person". Who, it just so happens, "developed plans" that are functionally identical to "generic Democrat" plans.

IOW, her story's a lie, she's just another generic Democrat with nothing special to offer.

Officials nab Canadian man trying to cross border with 51 turtles in his pants

Using information gained from an anonymous tip, U.S. authorities detained a man this summer after noticing ‘irregularly shaped bulges’ in his sweatpants. But this wasn’t the Underwear Bomber 2.0. Instead, a Canadian man had taped 51 live turtles to his legs and groin and was attempting to smuggle them across the border, The Guardian reported.